The conventional floor lamp is commonly placed in the living room, entrance ways or corner of a room to provide lighting and interior atmosphere; in addition to utilization as a source of illumination, the floor lamp also serves as an elegant decorative object reflecting the ultimate in high-class living. Therefore, the exterior design of a floor lamp is obviously of extreme importance.
Referring to the floor lamp (10) in FIG. 1, the main components are the base (11), column (12) and lamp shade (13); of these, modifications to the base (11) and the lamp shade (13) have the most influence on outward appearance and futhermore, since only the column (12) is a completely functional component, the column tends to remain tubular as commonly seen in the construction of most conventional floor lamps.
In terms of other aspects, a conventional floor lamp is ordinarily equipped with an dimmer to provide electrical current switching and variable illumination. In general, there are two types of conventional dimmers; the example type indicated in FIG. 1 is normally mounted in the column (12) (usually at a distance from the floor enabling convenient operation by the extended arm of a standing adult). As further indicated in FIG. 2, the overall physical dimensions of the electronic components on the dimmer sub-assembly (14) are subject to space limitations (such as in the case of the potentiometer (15) and other electronic components not shown in FIG. 2) and this also applies to the height of the knob (16) as well as other factors; thus, there is always the limitation that electronic components of the most compact physical dimension be selected. Due to the preceding situation, the inner diameter of the column (12) must be large enough to permit the insertion of the dimmer sub-assembly (14) into the column (12). Since the initial development of the floor lamp up until the present day (the floor lamp is now considered a mature product), the minimum inner diameter of the column had to measure 1.5 inches (38.1 mm) in order to provide the requisite space for installing the dimmer and, under this condition, since this precludes the utilization of a column with an inner diameter smaller than the aforestated dimensions, the further development of the floor lamp has been hampered.
In addition, the aforementioned dimmer sub-assembly (14) has an operating knob (16) which protrudes through the wall of the column (12) (refer to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2). Since the operating knob (16) protrudes in such an inelegant manner, there is an abrupt projection emerging from the surface of the column (12), with the effect resulting in a blemish and visible aberration that is unavoidable in the design of the column segment (10) of the floor lamp.
The second type of conventional dimmer is independent of the floor lamp itself and is usually connected to the floor lamp via a length of wire. This type of externally connected dimmer allows the utilization of a smaller inner diameter column during the designing of a floor lamp since there are no restrictions with regard to column dimensions, thus facilitating the design of floor lamps with a range of different column sizes as required to conform with marketing trends because the disadvantage of having to insert a dimmer sub-assembly into a tubular column with a minimum diameter of 1.5 inches has been solved; however, this type of externally connected dimmer is not totally free of shortcomings, since the dimmer is separated from the floor lamp, there are no provisions for permanently positioning the dimmer, thus raising the possibility of inconvenience, which will become most apparent when the dimmer is sought by fruitlessly groping in the dark.